The Utah Transportation Commission convened in a Staff Update Meeting with UDOT staff on July 18, 2013, in the conference room at the Region One Offices, 166 West Southwell Street, Ogden, Utah, at 12:30 p.m. In attendance were:

Director Carlos Braceras welcomed the group and reviewed the Staff Update meeting agenda. He noted that since the bus was running late, they would start the Update meeting now. He introduced Shane Marshall as the new Deputy Director.

SIB Loan Guidelines and Application Discussion

Bill Lawrence distributed some handouts and noted that this item was on tomorrow’s meeting agenda. He commented that the State Infrastructure Bank (SIB) guidelines didn’t have a very defined time frame of when the interest rate was to be applied to a loan, so their recommendation is to make it the date of Commission approval. The discussion centered on what ability the Commission has to raise or lower the interest rate, and the rate that would be applied to the Vineyard Town SIB loan request. Mr. Lawrence referred to the handout with comparisons of various interest rates and payment amounts for the Vineyard Town request and talked about the rate changes that have occurred since discussions first started with them.

Linda Hull suggested that the wording in the guidelines could be changed from “Interest rate applied will be the current rate on the date of Commission approval of the loan request” to “Interest rate applied may be the current rate . . .” to provide some flexibility in extraordinary circumstances. The Commissioners said they were comfortable with that suggestion, and Mr. Lawrence said he would make changes to tomorrow’s meeting information to reflect that. There was additional discussion regarding Vineyard’s project to remove the rail line, how the state would benefit from that project, and Fountain Green City’s SIB loan request that is also be on tomorrow’s agenda. It was recommended that the interest rate for Fountain Green be the same as what’s being applied to Vineyard Town’s request.

Discussion of Pavement Program

Bill Lawrence reviewed the SR-68; 2100 South to California Avenue project that is on tomorrow’s agenda. He explained that it was a pavement project in the Purple Book Program, which deals with just pavement. However, because the pavement has varying widths in the project, the Region would like to square everything up, add curb and gutter, and do some drainage work. Because of that, the project is no longer qualified for the typical Purple Book Program and would be moved from the Purple Book Program to the Major Rehabilitation List as a stand-alone project. Mr. Lawrence reviewed the funding scenario and showed a map of the project location. Other detailed/technical discussion took place, as well.